Drama

The Ugly American (1963)
An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan, a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace. Despite his knowledge, once he’s there, MacWhite sees only a dichotomy between the U.S. and Communism. He can’t accept that anti-American sentiment might be a longing for self-determination and nationalism. So, he breaks from his friend Deong, a local opposition leader, ignores a foreman’s advice about slowing the building of a road, and tries to muscle ahead. What price must the country and his friends pay for him to get some sense? Read More »

Plot:

Louis Hayward plays an arrogant Cambridge student who emigrates to America and enrolls at the West Point. Hayward’s cocky attitude earns him the enmity of his fellow students and the derisive nickname “the Duke”. Those viewers familiar with college pictures will know as early as the opening titles that Hayward is down deep a swell guy. He proves this by helping impoverished plebe Richard Carlson pay his college costs and winning a crucial hockey game against a Canadian team. 20-year-old leading lady Joan Fontaine fits right in as the beautiful target of Hayward’s attentions.

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Alba is eleven years old and terribly shy. She has great difficulty standing up for herself among the precocious girls in her class, who talk like little adults about relationships but keep making fun of Alba with the cruelty of children. The fact that she gets nosebleeds at inconvenient moments doesn’t help. To make matters worse, when her ailing mother is hospitalised she is dumped with her eccentric father Igor, who she never knew and of whom she is very ashamed. Very slowly and cautiously, the father and daughter get to know each other. Alba is a coming-of-age film that is both heart-rending and unsentimental. It’s striking that such a mature and powerful debut comes from Ecuador, the country that until the beginning of this century had only made one film a year. Young leading actress Macarena Arias is one to keep an eye on. She manages to use a minimum of dialogue to devastating effect.

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Quote:
A shy student falls in love with a girl from another class. After he works up the courage to ask her to the school dance, something unexpected happens.
The film, shot by Verhoeven at the same school he attended in The Hague, is loosely based on the description of the unrequited love of Anton Wachter in Simon Vestdijk’s novel Back to Ina Damman, one of the parts in the Anton Wachter cycle.

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kinoglaz.fr:
Nadya (Nina Ruslanova) is a young woman who loves the geologist Maxim (Vladimir Vysotsky). She takes a job as a housemaid before discovering Maxim is romantically involved with town official Valentina Ivanovna (Kira Muratova). The heartbroken Nadya goes away before Maxim can return, leaving him and Valentina to pursue their romance.

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imdb:
Nadja, a country girl moves to the city and becomes Valya’s maid. Valya, a member of the District Soviet, does not know that Nadja fell in love with Valya’s currently absent husband, a geologist, when he was at her village on a recent expedition. Written by Erik Gregersen {[email protected]}Read More »

During the Algerian War, Bruno Forestier lives in Geneva to escape the enlistment in France. Working for French intelligence, he is ordered to kill Palivoda, who is pro-FLN (National Liberation Front of Algeria), to prove he is not a double agent. Refusal and hesitation keep him from carrying out the assassination.

Meanwhile, he meets and falls in love with Véronica Dreyer, who helped the FLN. Bruno plans to leave with her for Brazil, but is captured and tortured by Algerian revolutionaries.

He escapes, and agrees to kill Palivoda for the French in exchange for passage to Brazil for himself and Veronica. However, the French discover Veronica’s ties to the FLN, and torture her to death. (Wikipedia)Read More »

Lung Kong’s first color feature (and 3rd film) expands on thematic concerns supplanted in The Story of a Discharged Prisoner made one year before, situating issues of social reform within an impassioned romantic melodrama. The relationship between a career criminal and a blind girl (a stunning performance by Josephine Siao) form a portrait of marginalized life in a rapidly-modernizing Hong Kong. The profound chemistry between Patrick Tse and Josephine Siao onscreen served as the primary inspiration for the famed hit man-blind girl pairing in John Woo’s award-winning film The Killer (1989). (description from Letterboxd)Read More »

While at a summerhouse, awaiting their husbands’ return, a group of sisters-in-law recount stories from their respective marriages. Rakel (Anita Björk) tells of receiving a visit from a former lover (Jarl Kulle); Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson) of agreeing to marry a painter (Birger Malmsten) only after having his child; and Karin (Eva Dahlbeck) of being stuck with her husband (Gunnar Björnstrand) in an elevator, where they talk intimately for the first time in years. Making dexterous use of flashbacks, the engaging Waiting Women is a veritable seedbed of Bergman themes, ranging from aspiring young love to the fear of loneliness, with the finale a masterpiece of chamber comedy.Read More »

Synopsis:
“Young Jenny heads to the South of England to start a new career as a school teacher. Even before she has had a chance to settle in she meets Patrick, one of the local “lads”. Within a short time she has her hands full when a number of the local boys take a liking to her. But who will be the lucky one who wins her affections?”
– Kevin Steinhauer (IMDb)Read More »